Abstract
The need for prospective beneficiaries to “take up” new programs is a common stumbling block for otherwise well-designed legal and policy innovations. I examine the take-up problem in the context of publicly provided court services and test the effectiveness of various outreach strategies that announce a newly available online court access platform. I study individuals with minor arrest warrants whose distrust of courts may dampen any take-up response. I partnered with a court to quasi-randomly assign outreach approaches to a cohort of individuals and find that outreach improves take-up, that the type of outreach matters, and that online platform access is itself effective.
Disciplines
Courts | Law and Economics
Date of this Version
1-1-2018
Working Paper Citation
Prescott, JJ, "Assessing Access-to-Justice Outreach Strategies" (2018). Law & Economics Working Papers. 185.
https://repository.law.umich.edu/law_econ_current/185